If I Were You 1938 - Articles Page 4

On October 30, 1938, just before 8:00 pm, Americans gathered around the radio to listen to Mercury Theatre On The Air, an anthology series produced and hosted by Orson Welles. That evening's program, scripted by Howard Koch, was a modern-day adaptation of H.G. Well's The War of the Worlds, one of the first tales of alien invasion, in which Martians emerged from meteors to lay waste to all of the Earth's civilizations. Except that Koch, with help from producers John Houseman, Paul Stewart and Welles himself, structured the program to play, at least in the first moments, as special news bulletins interrupting a normal performance by a dance orchestra. The ruse seems thin even for the time, but Hitler had 'annexed' Austria a few months earlier, and was threatening to do more, so the program struck a chord and the resulting panic in the area in close proximity - Welles' Martians landed in a New Jersey pasture, sent East Coast residents scurrying across bridges and clogging highways.

SHE LOVES ME, the 1963 Broadway musical with book by Joe Masteroff, music by Jerry Bock, and lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, was based on Miklos Laszlo's 1937 play, Parfumerie, a warm, gentle comedy that follows the tangled dating life of perfume shop employee Georg Horvath whose dating life goes awry when he discovers that the stranger he has fallen in love with through a secret correspondence is none other than Amalia Balash, a co-worker with whom he constantly bickers. This universal tale about mistaken identity and romantic love went on to become the inspiration for the classic films The Shop Around the Corner, In the Good Ole Summertime, and Nora Ephron's 1998 box office hit You've Got Mail in which Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan took their secret romance online through emails.

Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation (SDCF), the independent, not-for-profit affiliate of SDC, Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, today announced unique plans for its 2019 award evening, which will feature original choreographic pieces resulting from a special commissioning program, with the application period now open. SDCF also announced that Victoria Traube would receive a special 'Mr. Abbott' Award at the event, to be held March 25 at the French Institute Alliance Francaise (FIAF).

One of the fist modern instances of 'breaking the fourth wall,' Thornton Wilder's OUR TOWN is a story addressed directly to an audience - by the production's Stage Manager, the narrator and an occasional player in the story. It's a tale of the life of the fictional Grover's Corners, New Hampshire from 1901 through 1913, seen through the eyes of two neighboring families and the Stage Manager's decription of the locale.

Norm Foster has written over sixty plays which have been produced all over the world. Selections from this most-produced Canadian playwright have been included at Theatre 40 for many years, but this time the group is excited to present the U.S. Premiere of his appropriately titled new play SCREWBALL COMEDY which pays homage to this classic genre of entertainment. Emerging in the 1930s, screwball comedies were a wild new strain of fast-talking farces involving battles of the sexes and a world forever on the brink of chaos. The elements included a male and female who may be adversarial at first but are ultimately ideal for each other. Think of the classic films It Happened One Night, His Girl Friday, Bringing Up Baby and My Man Godfrey during which some farcical or slapstick action occurs, including snappy patter and crackling dialogue with bits of off-color humor thrown in, with the plot ultimately leading to the female gaining the upper hand in the relationship.

Stage and screen star, Patricia Morison died today at the age of 103 at home in Los Angeles of natural causes. A stage icon and legend best known for her starring roles in Cole Porter's Kiss Me Kate and The King & I opposite Yul Brynner, she established an indelible mark in films with a reputation as a the villainous femme fatale with large blue eyes and extremely long, dark hair that made her a favorite of studios and fans alike. 

The San Diego Symphony, along with many others, is this year celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth of Leonard Bernstein. The first half of the Symphony's 'Dances Suites and Serenades' concert consisted of 'Three Dance Variations' from Bernstein's ballet Fancy Free, and Serenade (After Plato's 'Symposium'). Fancy Free was choreographed by Jerome Robbins. Robbins collaborated on all of Bernstein's ballets and his hugely successful Broadway musical Westside Story. Fancy Free features three sailors on leave who want to impress two young women. Since two doesn't equal three, except possibly in fake-news reports, they  dance to showoff and help the women decide which two suitors will win approval. Galop, waltz and danzon variations provide solos for each sailor in which to demonstrate skill and personality.

Review: Make a Date for a Captivating THE GENTLEMAN CALLER

Rehearsals are in full swing for The 5th Avenue Theatre's production of Kiss Me, Kate, which begins performances next Friday, April 6.

Maryland Ensemble Theatre's MET-X BRANCH presents the second installment of the Endangered Species Project with an actively staged reading of Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Rachel Crothers' He and She. Written in 1911, this early feminist's battle of the sexes drama focuses on He (Tom Herford) and She (Ann Herford), husband and wife artists whose marriage is put to the test when it is time to submit for a prestigious commission. He and She is often considered Rachel Crothers' most important play for its nuanced depiction of the choices faced by the New Woman of 1911. He and She opened in Boston in February of 1912, had a successful run on Broadway in 1920, and had a major revival in 1980 when mounted by New York's BAM Theatre Company.

Maryland Ensemble Theatre's MET-X BRANCH presents the second installment of the Endangered Species Project with an actively staged reading of Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Rachel Crothers' He and She. Written in 1911, this early feminist's battle of the sexes drama focuses on 'He' (Tom Herford) and 'She' (Ann Herford), husband and wife artists whose marriage is put to the test when it is time to submit for a prestigious commission. He and She is often considered Rachel Crothers' most important play for its nuanced depiction of the choices faced by the New Woman of 1911. He and She opened in Boston in February of 1912, had a successful run on Broadway in 1920, and had a major revival in 1980 when mounted by New York's BAM Theatre Company.

Running now until December 16, NOT ABOUT NIGHTINGALES is one of Williams' early works, written in 1938. The play's rough edges help to bridge our understanding of how an aspiring Thomas would later become known to the world as Tennessee. Such a rarity is this play that it was not produced until the 1990's after Vanessa Redgrave first heard of its existence, and then persisted in bringing it to the stage.

One year on from the release of their debut album, The Pies are back with another rare live performance, this time at The Epstein Theatre today 20th October.

The last time Jane Kaczmarek acted on the Los Angeles stage, she transformed into the morphine-addicted Mary Tyrone in Eugene O'Neill's LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT at the Geffen Playhouse. Jane returns to the L.A. boards, this time in the traditionally-male role of Stage Manager in Thornton Wilder's OUR TOWN, just opened at The Pasadena Playhouse, in a co-production with Deaf West Theatre.

Aisle Say has seen hundreds of shows. Never have I experienced such an overwhelming amalgam of sound and light, FX and empathy, soaring and captivating voices singing gorgeous melodies, as in this performance of SOMETHING WICKED COMES THIS WAY.

The first time I saw GALILEO by Bertolt Brecht performed was thirty-five years ago at Trinity Rep. I remembered being blown away by the experience-the late great Richard Kneeland played the title role and Brecht's play put the conflict between science and dogma right on the table. I remember loving the idea that one person can be right and the rest of the world wrong. So now the Burbage Theatre Company in Providence is offering GALILEO directed by Vincent Petronio and I was curious to see if they could measure up and if the play held up.

Theater's power to transform and transport is astonishing and the capability of artists to create a sense of time and place, with words and music and theatrical wizardry to lend a tangible feeling to the experience can leave you breathless. Who'd have ever thought that such thrilling artistry, the very magic of make believe, could be so vividly expressed, so awesomely felt in two hours spent in a backwoods Southern church on a Saturday night in 1938? But that's exactly what happens in Smoke on the Mountain, Connie Ray and Alan Bailey's evocative, down-home musical that lovingly takes its audiences back home again in ways not even Thomas Wolfe may ever have imagined.

One of five shows singled out as “ones to watch” at the prestigious 2017 New York Musical Festival festival, THE GOREE ALL-GIRL STRING BAND successfully couches a message about redemption through music in a consistently funny play about a female prison in Texas circa 1938. The true story of female inmates at Goree State Farm doesn't pull punches about racism, sexism, or the justice system. While the grim reality of incarceration (and potential sterilization) is ever-present, it is ultimately the humanity of these women “who've done bad” that emerges from Michael Bradley's well-plotted book and the fine acting of GOREE's ensemble, led by Lauren Patten (Fun Home).

JSP Records is proud to announce the release on August 4, 2017 of JUDY GARLAND: CLASSIC DUETS, a 4-CD 109-track set produced by John Stedman that will include 15 tracks never previously issued on CD.

JSP Records is proud to announce the release on August 4, 2017 of JUDY GARLAND: CLASSIC DUETS, a 4-CD 109-track set produced by John Stedman that will include 15 tracks never previously issued on CD.

One year on from the release of their debut album, The Pies are back with another rare live performance, this time at The Epstein Theatre on Friday 20th October.

Mint Audio Records is proud to announce the release on July 25, 2017 of a new 2-CD 48-track set, Judy Garland: Soundtracks.

The Beach Boys Band has announced its popular show The Beach Boys Story will be rolling into The Epstein Theatre on Friday 19th May.

New York Theatre Ballet's presentation on February 25, 2017, was a dedication of sorts to Antony Tudor and Martha Clarke. If the evening was less than memorable due to the thinness of the material, it did offer glimpses into the minds of two creative artists who have tried, and often succeeded, in pushing the boundaries of pure dance into a psychological state.

Not content with the hearty dose of humiliation he received on stage during his recent stint in panto at The Epstein Theatre, heart-throb Jordan Davies has come back to Liverpool for a second helping!